


Maneo

by imochan



Series: Interluda Series [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Explicit Language, Grieving, Hogwarts Era, M/M, MWPP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imochan/pseuds/imochan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through the night and into the morning. Immediately following the events of Amissus and Censura, 1979.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maneo

**Author's Note:**

> The Interluda Series was originally written in 2004.

Remus rests his head against the doorframe; his body is buzzing with exhaustion – like anger, like the tightness in his throat from watching James's red-cracked eyes - and too much of James's whiskey. The stairwell smells like dirty rain and a little like crumbled moss, sour and tight. Over their heads, there's the sound of dull, thudding music - it's four in the morning, he thinks, who plays music at four in the morning? – and the hall lamp is flickering desperately, an unsteady  _zzzt-hrmm-zzzt-zzzzt_  in his ears.   
  
"They never did fix that light," he murmurs, watching it, burnt-butter glow and full of black fly specks.   
  
"Never fucking asked them to," mumbles Sirius, his elbow jostling Remus's side when he fumbles in his pockets for the keys.   
  
"You should," says Remus. "It's not doing you any good like – like that."  
  
"It's a fucking  _hall lamp_ , Remus," Sirius snaps, and drops his keys. "Fucking bugger!"  
  
"Stop shouting," says Remus. "You're too drunk to shout." He bends and picks up the keys; they feel oily and slippery from being clenched in Sirius's sweaty hand. He feels a little guilty for calling Sirius Too Drunk, when Sirius sighs and slumps against the door, because the world is strangely aqueous to him, too, and it's remarkably difficult to get the keys in the lock, especially with them both crushed into the doorframe; with Sirius pressing his flushed, damp face against Remus's shoulder.  
  
"Mgffmph," says Sirius. "Blgh."  
  
"I know," Remus says, even though he doesn't, and manages to drop the keys himself. "Oh,  _hell_."  
  
"Fuck," laughs Sirius, pressing his nose sharply to Remus's collarbone. "Ahaha – fucking look at you! Fuck."  
  
"I think we're locked out," Remus mumbles, staring at the keys over Sirius's ear.  
  
"Not fucking locked out," Sirius reels, hits the back of his head on the doorframe. "Owfuck. Not. More --  _locked out_ ," and he taps Remus's temple, sloppily.  
  
Remus bats his hand away, and bends to pick up the keys, only stumbling a little when he fits them into the lock, finally. "Not locked out," he mumbles, nudging at the chipped door with his elbow, and it creaks open. "All right? Get in, you."   
  
"Fuck," laughs Sirius again, stumbling inside, into the hallway-stained darkness of the flat, to promptly trip over the toad-shaped doorstop with a thick, bruising sound. "--  _Christ!_  Ff-- _Ow!_ "  
  
Remus flicks on the light, and Sirius is red-faced, drunken-dishevelled, hissing, clutching at his shin, the toad looking as sublimely happy as he always does, despite the large chunk that's always been missing from just above its left eye.  
  
"Fucking Christ!" hisses Sirius, murderous, slumping back against the sofa. "God-damned piece of -- !"  
  
"All right?" Remus thinks if he moves, he's going to fall over very heavily, and probably quite a lot, so he keeps his hand on the doorknob to keep himself upright.   
  
"Fucking James," mumbles Sirius; Remus sees him grip his leg.   
  
"Stop swearing," Remus says, closing his eyes, rubbing his face; he feels sweaty, overdrawn, something heavy and rattling in his chest.   
  
"Fuck," says Sirius, pleasantly, dirty grin on his face. "Fuuuuuhck."  
  
"Mature," says Remus, and stumbles to the sofa.   
  
"Stay," Sirius mumbles, slumping down beside him, his hand finding Remus's elbow, cupping it, sloppily, fingers rough, calloused, sliding up his arm.   
  
"Well," Remus says, tipping his head back, Sirius's hand finding the back of his neck across the length of the sofa. "Well, yes."  
  
"Oh, of course: ' _Well, yes_ '!" Sirius mocks, parroting Remus's posh slide of politeness with a little more slurring than Remus thinks is proper, or even what he himself sounds like, now.   
  
"Of course you are," says Sirius, again, tipping his head back, "Like you've anywhere else to go."  
  
"I could go back to my flat," says Remus, quietly, though it's as good as a lie, because he's not exactly sure if he  _could_. Standing is looking like a hazy reality at this point, with London dark and drunk outside the window, with Sirius Black pressed against his side, warm and sweaty and damp, smelling like whiskey, and the lingering perfume of a dead generation, the kind found curled in the holes in the upholstery of the chairs you never sit in anymore, for fear of waking the dead. He smells like salt, and blue dresses and bare feet dancing on bare wood and something horrible tugs at Remus's ribs, head watery and breath trembling from his throat.   
  
"No, you couldn't," says Sirius, quietly, in the dark. "Why would you want that?"   
  
"I wouldn't," says Remus, rubbing his face, Sirius's fingers carelessly massaging his neck.   
  
"Course you fucking wouldn't," Sirius exhales, fingers twisting a little tightly in the hair at the base of Remus's neck. "Haven't anywhere else, have you?"  
  
"You keep saying that," Remus says to the ceiling, eyes closing, room swimming. His stomach churns, a little unpleasantly, and he chalks it up to too much whiskey and not Sirius's fingers or Sirius's cruel, smooth voice by his ear.   
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Sirius."  
  
"Yeah. What."  
  
"Sirius – "  
  
"Fuck, what?"  
  
He tries, though his mind is telling him to stay quiet. "Sirius. It'll be okay. It'll be fine, you know. It happens."  
  
"Fuck  _you_ ," Sirius snarls, immediately, swallowing the weak comfort and spitting it out again.   
  
"But. No. It's only – "  
  
" _Fuck you_  if you – if you think - ! Why the hell did it have to be – it's not. James didn't deserve – "  
  
"James will. Will be all right. And – "  
  
"You don't know that!" snaps Sirius. "You don't know  _anything_  about him. You didn't  _know_  them! You  _have_  your own parents!"  
  
Remus feels a little like that was unfair.  
  
"What?" Sirius's mouth twists, darkly. "What's that fucking  _face_  for, mmh? It's true – it's – it's fucking true,  _your_  parents are still fucking  _alive_ , you _love_  your  _fucking parents_ , so what do you know!  _Fuck that_."  
  
Sorry, Remus wants to say, but doesn't really feel it. It's too jumbled up with the tight ache in his chest, suddenly ugly and invalidated and untrue, according to Sirius Black.   
  
He looks away and watched the way the shadows swerve over and up and through the window, when a car dives by down below. I am sorry, he thinks. If I were sober, too, I would be sorry. Or maybe angry, he thinks: I could punch him. He even makes a fist, but it feels soggy, and girlish. When the shadows leap up over the walls again, a rumble of a motor, the lattice light jiggles, and Remus feels that the air is laughing at him.   
  
And he can hear Sirius breathe, raspy, tight, sloppy, with a hiccough every now and then, as though he's –  
  
"... Are you – "  
  
" _No_ ," says Sirius, but he is, a little. Remus can see it, blurring in the bright corners of Sirius's eyes –   
  
"Oh," says Remus. "Don't. Sirius, oh. Don't." He's bad at this. Horrible, even; always has been.  
  
"I'm  _not_ ," Sirius insists, his fingers tightening on the skin of Remus's neck, feverish. "Fuck  _off_ , Moony."  
  
"Sirius," he says, and goes quiet again, and lets Sirius sit beside him and cry. It is the most awkward, beautiful moment of his life, to see dull London street lamps reflected on the tears rolling down Sirius's face, the way that Sirius stares straight ahead, with Sirius's fingers curled around his neck, bracing, cradling, leeching comfort where Remus cannot give it. They shared an embrace, on the veranda of the Potter's house, dusty and warm, but  _this_  is intimate, thinks Remus, this is me being drunk and him being drunk, and both of us so scared and Sirius is  _crying_. They were friends, and then they were fighting and, now. Now, thinks Remus, his hand is on my neck and he's crying.   
  
Child, thinks Remus, horribly, dazedly, we are children, and Sirius stumbles to his feet, disappears into the dull hallway, the bathroom light spilling onto the carpet, Sirius's silhouette looming up the wall, the pipes clanking when Sirius turns on the water.   
  
"Fuck," says Sirius, suddenly, apparently for no reason. "Christ. Remus," he calls, shadow splaying on the wall, drunken and spinning in the corner of Remus's vision. "Remus, you want coffee? Want – you want anything?"  
  
He appears in the hallway again, wasted, tired limp-stagger, a cocked grin on his face: ready to go off, thinks Remus.  
  
"No," Remus says. "No, nothing."  
  
"No _nothing_ ," mocks Sirius, in one breath. "Of course not."   
  
Remus sees him shift, restless, thumbs hooked in his waistband, foot to foot to foot, hand clenching, tracing a hairline crack in the plaster of the wall. "Budge over," he says, from across the room.  
  
Remus feels a little too ridiculous to move.  
  
"Budge  _over_ ," says Sirius, and weaves over the floor, slowly, hand pushing away from the wall, the treacle-tart momentum sending him sprawling onto the couch, half over Remus's thighs; his damp hands brace above Remus's head and on Remus's ribs. Remus can see the tearstains on Sirius's shirt and tastes salt under his tongue, dizzily.  
  
"Sirius – " Remus shifts, grunting. "Your knee is – "  
  
" _Budge_ , man," Sirius growls, and knocks at Remus's side, his hips, pushing him sideways and against the back of the sofa. "I need to lie  _down_  or I'm going to  _vomit_. On  _you_ , no less."  
  
"Well," says Remus, shifting, and then they are pressed together, facing, arms curling and interlocking between their bodies. And, Remus realizes, dizzily, and. And Sirius's wet, red, whiskey-salt mouth is breathing against Remus's jaw, and Sirius's damp hair is tangled up with Remus's and tickling his forehead and cheeks. And Sirius's knee is between his legs, Remus realizes, and. And he's fairly certain this is how, sometimes, he woke up, after Moonset, and felt like he might be in love.   
  
We are children, thinks Remus, and lullaby, lullaby, thinks Remus, and lay your sleeping head.   
  
"Well, then," he says, instead, and Sirius pushes a knuckle against his mouth.  
  
" _Shh_."  
  
Murmurs in the dark, room spiraling slowly around them, thinks Remus, and loops an arm over Sirius's waist; he feels the ridge-curve of a hipbone against his wrist. Sirius is quiet, now, and London is surging indelicately, to life. If Remus opens his eyes, he can see Sirius's face in the halflight: damp stubble, perfect, haughty mouth, dark, pretty lashes, all, and he has to shut his eyes again, because when he licks his dry lips, he can taste Sirius in the scant air between them.   
  
"Moony," whispers Sirius, in the dawn, against Remus's fingers.   
  
"Mmh."  
  
"Moony," he says again. This word is their secret, breathed against the places where they touch. "Moony. Want to go home."  
  
Remus doesn't know what that means, anymore, but he knows; he thinks he wants it, too.   
  
\---

[imo @ lj](http://imochan.livejournal.com/)   
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